Then he saw her. It was as if someone had thrown the windows open and let in blinding morning sunlight. His dream, once stale and empty, was suddenly flush with movement and laughter. He knew who would stand on the patio waiting for him to return from the chaparral, whose hand he would take as he stepped into the shade.
Nena took that dream and crushed it beneath the heel of her boot. She could not stand up to Don Feliciano. If she cared for him, if she loved him as she had when they were children, it was not enough.
His vision blurred. His hand rose of its own accord from the reins to his face to rub his eyes, brush wetness from his cheeks. Luna, feeling the shift of his weight, slowed. The setting sun stabbed his vision; he grimaced.
He was riding west, alone.
He had once walked, alone.
He left.
Shame flushed through him like a blast of heat from the farrier’s forge.
He halted Luna. His chest quickened as it rose and fell, each breath sharper, each more painful.
He left.
When he was a boy, he fled because he was afraid of Don Feliciano. He turned his back on Nena and ran because the patrón pointed at him and bellowed. If he had stayed . . . everything would have been different. If they had been side by side, perhaps Nena would have had the strength to learn to say no to her father. To stand up to the demands of her parents.
But he ran.
And he had run again.
You are a stain on her honor. If I ever see you on my land again, I will shoot you.
It was different this time—it was a voiced threat, explicit and spoken with a hand on the holster. But instead of keeping to his promise, he ran. Just as he had when he was a boy.
He left Nena.
She was Don Feliciano’s daughter; his thunderous anger struck a primal chord in her as well. She had always been afraid of him as a girl. She was still afraid of him now.
When they faced the vampire in the jacal, she stayed at his back. When he was paralyzed by fear, she handed him his pistol and curled his fingers around its handle. When he was flung to the ground, she defended him.
She was a brave woman. She could stand up to Don Feliciano, if he stood by her side.
They had survived thus far because they stayed together. They faced the demon head-on.
When faced with Don Feliciano, Néstor ran.
He had made the same mistake she had.
He lifted his eyes to the reddening sun.
He had once thought what they had was a fragile, perfect thing. It was neither. It was imperfect, yes. If a path to the future lay at their feet, it was pocked and marred with difficulties. But he could withstand it. If he bit down on his fear, if he fought hard enough for it, perhaps they both could withstand it.
For nine years, he had lived his life thinking Nena was dead. Now that he knew she was not, how could he let their mistakes divide them?
He clicked his tongue to Luna. Lifted his reins against her neck.
He put the sun to his back.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
AND LATER, AS twilight grew dense, when he came across the corpse of a puma and Luna shied from its desiccated body—sucked dry as if by drought—he gathered his reins.
He bent toward Luna’s neck and rode hard for Los Ojuelos.
30
NENA
CANDLES AND TORCHES filled the house beyond the girls’ room with frantic, leaping light as Nena yanked on boots and snatched a sarape to throw over her nightdress. She grabbed Néstor’s gun from beneath her pillow and strapped the holster over her hips. She prayed she did not have to use it as she strode into la sala with Javiera and the cousins, but it was a thin prayer at best. A weak, faithless thing that dissipated on the fear of the night like smoke.
If she had to, she would. She had to act as she had on the road with Néstor: she could not wait for orders from Mamá and Papá. If they did command her to do something, she might have to ignore them. She alone knew what the burning in her scar meant, and she knew what would have to be done to protect her family and the rancho.
La sala was a flurry of shirts and vests being pulled overhead as Papá, Félix, and the tíos threw on clothes and seized rifles. The sulfuric scent of gunpowder and shouts filled the air; a thunder of bootheels as they ran outside to join the other men of the rancho. Mamá and the tías were left gathered in la sala like a cluster of frightened hens.
“We should barricade the door with furniture,” Nena said. Like water dropped in a hot pan of oil, they scattered across the room, the task filling them with purpose.
Nena walked directly to the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Javiera followed hot on her heels.
The dog kept barking. He circled fruitlessly through Javiera’s ankles, pointing his nose to any open window or door and snarling.
Nena went straight to where the knives were kept in the open-air kitchen. Cool night air shocked her skin. The fire was kept to embers overnight; they shone dully in the corner of her eye. Perhaps a fire would help keep the monsters at bay. But first: she had to arm herself and her family. She reached for the largest carving knives, the ones used for butchering pigs and beheading wild turkeys.
She took one knife and handed it to Javiera, handle first.
“I have a bad feeling,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over Pollo’s barking. And by feeling, she meant literally: the prickling sensation beneath her scar itched and burned like a rash. They were near. They had to be.
Javiera took the knife, a solemn determination settling in her slim shoulders. Didi and Alejandra hung in the doorway of the kitchen, watching Nena with alarmed expressions as she selected knives and handed them to her cousins. Next was the bag of salt. She grabbed it and began to drag it to the doorway.
“Didi, take this,” she barked. “Make a line of it around the doorway like I did last night and then stay back.”
Didi immediately followed her orders; Alejandra was her shadow in doing so.
Mamá appeared behind them, the ghostly white of her nightgown broken only by the long rope of her gray hair, still plaited for sleep.
“Girls, what are you—”
Then her eyes skipped past Nena to where the kitchen opened into the night. Her eyes bulged; her jaw dropped in shock.
Javiera’s shriek split Nena’s ears. She pointed into the night, beyond the kitchen fire.
So it began.
Nena inhaled deeply to steel herself and turned on her heel, jaw set, to face the vampire she knew waited beyond the kitchen.
A dark figure loomed in the night, rising from all fours to two legs.
She knew it would be there, yet seeing it juxtaposed with the familiar shadows of the kitchen sparked a fierce, protective anger in her chest. It flared bright, burning away any hesitation, any sensation of cool air or fear that raised the hairs on her arms.
It would not harm her home. It would not harm her sister.
Slowly, she reached to the table and took a knife, her eyes never leaving the vampire.
“Nena!” Javiera cried. “Get back!”
Motion whipped past her legs. A blur of yellow fur in the dark; a flash of white teeth. A horrific hiss as Pollo sank his teeth into the monster’s leg.
The vampire raised its arm to swipe at the dog with its dark, gore-stained claws.
Nena surged forward, sweat-slicked hands gripping the butcher knife.
This vampire was smaller in stature than the one that had attacked her and Néstor in the jacal. Moreover, its attention was directed down, at the dog that ripped into its leg. It looked up at Nena—a flash of teeth, a burst of its hot, carrion-heavy breath—only in the final moment before she swung the knife.
She brought the cleaver down with all her strength. Metal met flesh and ground against bone.
Then Nena stumbled forward. She caught herself before she tripped, still clutching the knife.
Ash fell around her onto the ground. On Pollo, who looked around in confusion. His snout was splattered with blood; flecks of ash stuck to the dark liquid. All that remained of the vampire.
“Nena!”
Nena turned, heart pounding, toward Mamá. Mamá’s eyes were platter wide, her nostrils flaring like a spooked horse as she made the sign of the cross. Didi, Alejandra, and Javiera hung by her side, their faces wan and shocked. The knives in their pale-knuckled grips shook.
“What in God’s name was that?” Mamá breathed.